70: "Dear Mission President, Please Don't Judge My Kid"

Ever had the urge to email your missionary’s mission president to explain your child’s quirks, apologize for 18 years of parenting, and offer a few disclaimers? Yeah… me too.

In today’s episode, we’re lightening things up and learning to laugh at the moments that usually send us into a shame spiral. Because let’s face it—sometimes the best medicine for a panicked mom brain is a little humor, especially when the situation is really just burnt toast, not a house fire.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why our urge to explain or defend doesn’t make us crazy—it just means we love hard
• How to recognize when our nervous system is overreacting (hello, Team Hyper)
• A collection of imaginary “Dear President” letters that will make you laugh out loud in the Costco parking lot
• The power of laughter to regulate emotions and break shame’s spell
• How to tell yourself the truer story when fear kicks in
• A powerful reminder that we’re not in charge of perfecting our missionaries (thank goodness for that!)

We wrap it all up with a story from a college professor that reminds us why taking life too seriously can be dangerous—and why lightening up is sometimes the most spiritual thing we can do.

This one’s for every mom who’s ever wanted to fix, explain, or defend—and is learning to laugh instead.

✨ Bonus Challenge: Write your own “Dear President” letter (but don’t send it).

Share your missionary stories where you agree to allow me to share them:
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Transcript

0:30

Hello and welcome to the podcast. So today we're gonna lighten things up a little bit because if you're anything like me, you've had at least one moment where your missionary says something in an email or on a phone call, or he does, or he or she doesn't say something, and your brain immediately writes an entire dramatic screenplay titled My Mission President's. My mission president thinks my kid is the worst. Maybe your missionary got in trouble, maybe their companion, they've had some issues. Maybe they're a little snarky in the morning, and suddenly you have this urge to just send a message that says, just so you know. To the mission president, complete with a backstory, disclaimers, and an apology from all of your parenting since 2025. But today, instead of spiraling into shame or trying to control the narrative or control what the mission President thinks or how they interact with our missionary, we're gonna long, we're gonna laugh. Because there is something about laughter that is holy and honestly, some of this stuff is kind of funny. So first of all, let's just start with why we want to explain things. So here's the truth. Our wanting to explain or defend our kid doesn't make us crazy. It doesn't. It just makes us a mom and a really good one, and it means that you care. It also probably means that you're worried that their behavior is a reflection on you. But what if it isn't? What if they're quirks, their struggles, even their mistakes are just part of their story and they're not a sign that something has gone wrong. And what if instead of panicking, we just wrote imaginary letters so that we could get'em all out of our system. So guess what? That's what I did. So here's a few of mine. So feel free to write your own or read'em out loud while you're in the car waiting in Costco for your rotisserie chicken. So here we go. Dear President, my son asked me if reading the Book of Mormon before he went on a mission was a good idea. I mean, I told him that was a good option. So if he's surprised by some of the things he learns, I mean, he is the youngest. We did our best. Dear President, if my son seems like he's falling asleep in sacrament meeting, he probably is. He once slept through a fire, fire drill in high school. It isn't spiritual rebellion. We think it's a gift. You should have seen him in home MTC. Dear President, if he asked you if there's a Chick-fil-A in heaven, I promise he's still spiritual. He's just hungry. Dear President, if he forgot his scriptures at a zone conference twice, please know that he once forgot his backpack on the bus. We've been working on this. Since he was nine. Dear President, if my son told you that obedience is relative, just know that he had a mom that was totally inactive and has recently come back to the church, so please give him some grace. Dear President, if he insists on wearing the same floral tie every day I fought that battle, I lost Godspeed. Dear President, if he seems overconfident, just know that we've been telling him since he was born that he is special. We may have overdone it just a little. Please use your discretion dear President. If he made a sarcastic comment during a district council, it wasn't disrespect. He's just deeply fluent in the language of dry humor. It's kind of a hereditary thing. We blame his grandpa. I. Dear President, if he was short with his companion this week, I'm sorry, but I was also short with him and his siblings for 18 years, so I get it. Dear President, if you overheard him referring to fasting as a spiritual hunger strike, I promise we taught him better. He just gets very dramatic when he's hangry. Dear President, he told me he's working on being more humble. So if he tells you he's basically nailing humility, please gently redirect him. So these aren't, these aren't just silly, like they're really true. Like there's really some good things here. And there's moments that we panic that actually don't mean disaster is looming. They mean that they mean that we're learning and they're learning and sometimes so are we. And sometimes some of my, dear President, emails are not funny. Sometimes they're aggressive, and so I try to reframe them to be something more funny because sometimes we can get real mama bear and get very defensive, and that's our nervous system, getting very defensive and making sure that our children are safe, even when. They're out on their own. So sometimes it's being able to really be aware and step back and allow them that growth. And honest to goodness for any type of hard situation with a mission president, it's always helpful. I. To break it up with laughter because it breaks that spell, that fear has over us. And it's not about mocking our kids, it's just about remembering that we're not in charge of perfecting them. And that's totally God's job. And he's so much more patient than we are. Elder Maxwell once said, how can, how can you and I expect to glide ni naively through life? When the Great Redeemer did not. So growth is messy even when you're on a mission, even when you're, you're the mom back home. So if you're still feeling this tug to explain, to defend, or to clarify or try to save face for your missionary for being misunderstood, here's a few things we can do. We can obviously write a letter. Don't send it, get it out. Cry. Whatever you need to do, then breathe and remember that you're not alone. Remember to take care of your nervous system. Remember to try to come back to your calm center after you've honored. All of the emotions. Try to find the humor when you can laugh, it loosens, shame's, grip. It also signals to your nervous system that you're safe and that everything's okay, and it's a really quick way of getting back into. Being calm center in your resilient zone. And then also tell yourself the truer story, like my missionary is learning how to be human and holy at the same time. Or it's okay if the mission president sees that he's messy. God already knows he's messy and he's not panicking. That's something that's really helped me. Like God's not in a panic here. So why am I panicking? So it gives me like a reprieve to like calm down and then remember always to say a prayer of surrender. I like to say something like, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I trust you and I know that I trust what you are doing with him. Or if you have a sister missionary with her. And that's enough, and saying it out loud is a huge step in faith. So today. Give yourself permission to laugh. Laugh at the quirks. Laugh at the things that they don't know. Laugh at the chaos. Laugh at the letters that you'll never send at how much you love this kid, that it physically hurts you sometime, but he or she is gonna be okay. And so are you. And if you need to come back to this episode, the next time your missionary tells you he's being reassigned for maybe an unknown reason, please. Come back to this because here at the LDS Missionary Mom Podcast, we believe in grace. We believe in growing pains, and we believe that laughter can be part of the healing, even in the mission field or maybe especially. In the mission field. And I think that sometimes we take things too seriously and I remember a college professor that I had when I was going to Utah State in school and it was a leadership class and I. His name was John Paul Murphy and he put up a picture of a young man and he said, what do you think about this young man? And, you know, various people raised their hand. They said, I think he looks like he has a lot of things going for him, or he looks like he's handsome. And he looks like he's, you know, just starting out in life. So he looked like he was about 18, 19 years old, and he said, this is my son. And he started taking life too darn seriously. And he was trying to decide if he went on, if he should go on a mission, if he should play athletics, if and at the collegiate level if he should continue dating the girlfriend. Anyway, there was just a bunch of things that he felt a lot of pressure for and he said, and my, I. Son committed suicide because he took life too seriously. And that has stayed with me all of my life because I think we all have a tendency to, to get too serious at times. And I don't think that we have to do anything that's, you know, mocking or, you know, inappropriate or what doesn't feel in alignment for you. But I think it is important that we. Sit back, gain some perspective and when we're panicking, being able to see like, is this the house burning down or is this burn toast? Because our nervous system always thinks the house is burning down. So it's really being able to level up your awareness so that you can cue to your nervous system that sometimes this is burn toast. And when it is burn toast, one of the ways that we can get back into regulation is using humor. And it's funny to kind of write some of these things out. It was a funny exercise for me. It was fun to be able to share some of the things that I've thought of. Some of the, especially the first one when I talked about my son asked me if reading the Book of Mormon before we went on a mission was a good idea. I mean. That's a good option. And so that was my response. And I had gotten over the kind of the overbearing helicopter mom stage, which I definitely had been through, and no judgment if that's where you're at, but I was able to use a lot more humor and we were able to laugh. And now that he's out there, he's, you know, read the Book of Mormon multiple times and he's like, mom. I can't believe what I've learned, and I'm like, I'm so excited to hear about it, but then I can do that within a cleaned up space instead of like, well, if you would've gone to seminary. And that kind of nagging mom voice that I have a propensity to do at times. So I just would encourage you that if there is an opportunity and sometimes things feel kind of crazy. If it really is burn toast, try to insert some humor. Enjoy some of the messiness. Enjoy their messiness. It's going to be. It's gonna be messy and that's okay. And also be open and have a lot of grace for the messiness that you have as well. All right, everybody. That was short and sweet, but I think it's really important. If you have anything that you want to send me in fan mail, definitely send me a text. I would love to hear from you and I will definitely be reading those on my podcast from now on. So thanks for joining me. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.